System and method of initiating an on-line meeting or teleconference via a web page link or a third party application

• US 20060123082A1
• Filed: 12/02/2005
• Published: 06/08/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/03/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rateze Remote Mgmt. L.L.C. (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Devereux Research AB LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Inventors: Tipnis, Rajeev, Harris, Carol A., Waks, Mark J., Herot, Christopher F., Digate, Charles J., Ketudat, Tonytip, Kopikis, Alexis M.
• Granted Patent: US 8,370,432 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/205
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1818 Conference organisation arrangements, e.g. handling schedules, setting up parameters needed by nodes to attend a conference, booking network resources, notifying involved parties
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/043 using or handling presence information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users

Abstract

A real-time messaging system and method for a plurality of users that obviates the need to install specialized, dedicated software on user computers, and renders the need to become a subscriber of the system unnecessary. The real-time messaging system is a rules-based system that applies a set of rules and user attributes to the availability status of the users to facilitate effective real-time communications between the users. The system allows each user to indicate his or her on-line presence via a hyperlink embedded in and displayable on a web page, an e-mail message, or other hyperlink-supporting document. Each hyperlink is associated with a URL that points to a document such as a web page configured to initiate an on-line meeting or teleconference. A user who wishes to participate in an on-line meeting or teleconference selects a hyperlink corresponding to a particular user or user group, thereby initiating the desired on-line meeting or teleconference.

Claims

1. A method of performing real-time communications between a plurality of users, each user having a user computer associated therewith, each user computer being communicably coupled to at least one communications network, comprising the steps of:

accessing a first document over the network by a first user computer, the first document having a hyperlink displayed thereon, the hyperlink being associated with at least one second user computer;

selecting the hyperlink displayed on the first document; and

in response to the selection of the hyperlink displayed on the first document, initiating a real-time communications session between the first and second user computers,

wherein the step of initiating the real-time communications session includes determining an availability of the second user computer for participating in the real-time communications session.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the hyperlink has a uniform resource locator (URL) associated therewith, and wherein the step of initiating the real-time communications session includes accessing a second document over the network by the first user computer, the second document being pointed to by the URL associated with the hyperlink.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the step of initiating the real-time communications session includes accessing the second document over the network by the first user computer, the second document being configured to allow the user of the first user computer to enter information relating to his or her identity.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the step of initiating the real-time communications session includes selecting a mechanism for verifying the identity of the user of the first user computer.

5. The method of claim 4 including the step of verifying the identity of the user of the first user computer.

6. The method of claim 2 wherein the step of initiating the real-time communications session includes accessing the second document over the network by the first user computer, the second document being configured to allow the user of the first user computer to enter information relating to a topic of the real-time communications session.

7. The method of claim 2 including the step of selecting a button disposed on the second document to request the real-time communications session with the second user computer.

8. The method of claim 7 including the step of, in response to the selecting of the button on the second document, causing a toast to be displayed on the second user computer, thereby announcing the requested real-time communications session between the first and second user computers.

9. The method of claim 8 including the step of selecting the toast displayed on the second user computer.

10. The method of claim 9 including the step of, in response to the selecting of the toast on the second user computer, causing a dialog box to be displayed on the second user computer, wherein the dialog box is configured to display information relating to at least one of an identity of the user of the first user computer and a topic of the real-time communications session.

11. The method of claim 9 including the steps of, in response to the selecting of the toast on the second user computer, causing a dialog box to be displayed on the second user computer, and selecting a button disposed on the dialog box to accept the requested real-time communications session between the first and second user computers.

12. The method of claim 11 including the step of causing a dialog box to be displayed on the second user computer, wherein the dialog box includes an indication of whether an identity of the user of the first user computer has been verified.

13. The method of claim 12 including the step of causing a dialog box to be displayed on the second user computer, wherein the dialog box includes an indication of a mechanism used to verify the identity of the user of the first user computer.

14. The method of claim 11 including the step of, in response to the selecting of the button disposed on the dialog box to accept the requested real-time communications session between the first and second user computers, causing a first meeting window to be displayed on the second user computer.

15. The method of claim 14 including the step of, in response to the displaying of the first meeting window on the second user computer, causing a second meeting window to be displayed on the first user computer.

16. The method of claim 14 including the steps of causing the first meeting window to be displayed on the second user computer, and causing the second meeting window to be displayed on the first user computer, and wherein the first and second meeting windows are operative to provide information content in an interactive graphics format.

17. The method of claim 16 including the steps of causing the first meeting window to be displayed on the second user computer, and causing the second meeting window to be displayed on the first user computer, and wherein the information content includes visual information in the form of at least one of text and video images.

18. The method of claim 16 including the steps of causing the first meeting window to be displayed on the second user computer, and causing the second meeting window to be displayed on the first user computer, and wherein the information content includes audible information.

19. The method of claim 6 wherein the step of initiating the real-time communications session includes accessing the second document over the network by the first user computer, the second document being configured to allow the user of the first user computer to enter information relating to a topic of the real-time communications session, and wherein the entered information comprises at least one element selected from the group consisting of an audio clip, a video clip, and an image.

20. The method of claim 9 including the step of selecting the toast displayed on the second user computer, wherein the toast comprises at least one element selected from the group consisting of an audio clip, a video clip, and an image.

21. The method of claim 9 including the steps of, in response to the selecting of the toast on the second user computer, causing a dialog box to be displayed on the second user computer, and selecting a button disposed on the dialog box to reject the requested real-time communications session between the first and second user computers.

22. The method of claim 21 including the step of, in response to the selecting of the button disposed on the dialog box to reject the requested real-time communications session between the first and second user computers, causing a message to be displayed on the first user computer indicating that the second user computer is unavailable.

23. The method of claim 1 including the step of, in the event the second user computer is determined to be unavailable, causing a message to be displayed on the first user computer indicating that the second user computer is unavailable.

24. The method of claim 23 including the step of initiating the real-time communications session between the first and second user computers at a time when the second user computer becomes available.

25. The method of claim 1 including the step of accessing the first document over the network by the first user computer, the first document having the hyperlink displayed thereon, the hyperlink being associated with the at least one second user computer, and wherein the hyperlink has an area associated therewith, the hyperlink area being defined by at least one of an icon and an alphanumeric string displayable on the first document.

26. The method of claim 25 including the step of indicating the availability of the second user computer for participating in the real-time communications session via a characteristic of at least one of the icon and the alphanumeric string displayable on the first document.

27. The method of claim 1 including the step of accessing the first document over the network by the first user computer, the first document being selected from the group consisting of a web page and an e-mail message.

28. The method of claim 27 including the step of, in the event the first document is an e-mail message, providing information corresponding to the user of the first user computer, the provided information being contained in the hyperlink.

29. The method of claim 1 including the step of, in the event the second user computer is determined to be available, generating a unique identifier associated with the real-time communications session.

30. The method of claim 29 including the step of, in the event the real-time communications session is not convened within a predetermined time period, canceling the real-time communications session associated with the unique identifier.

31. The method of claim 1 wherein the selecting step is performed multiple times by at least one user, and including the steps of determining a rate at which the hyperlink is selected, and, in the event the rate exceeds a predetermined threshold, canceling the initiation of the real-time communications session.

32. The method of claim 31 including the step of, in the event the rate exceeds a predetermined threshold, logging the hyperlink selections as a potential overload or attempted denial-of-service attack.

33. A system for performing real-time communications between a plurality of users, comprising:

a communications network;

a plurality of user computers communicably coupled to the communications network, the plurality of user computers including a first user computer and at least one second user computer, the first user computer being operative to access a first document over the network, the first document having a hyperlink displayed thereon, the hyperlink being associated with the second user computer; and

at least one real-time messaging server communicably coupled to the communications network, the real-time messaging server being operative, in response to a selection of the hyperlink displayed on the first document, to determine an availability of the second user computer for participating in a real-time communications session with the first user computer, and, in the event the second user computer is available, to initiate the real-time communications session between the first user computer and the second user computer.

34. The system of claim 33 wherein the plurality of user computers is selected from the group consisting of a PC client, a Flash client, a mobile client, a browser client, and a web services client.

35. The system of claim 34 including a web server, and wherein at least one of the browser client and the web services client are operative to communicate with the real-time messaging server via the web server.

36. The system of claim 34 including a media server, and wherein at least one of the PC client, the Flash client, and the mobile client are operative to communicate with the real-time messaging server via the media server.

37. The system of claim 33 including a voice response unit &

conference bridge and a telephony server, and wherein the voice response unit &

conference bridge is operative to communicate with the real-time messaging server via the telephony server.

38. The system of claim 33 including a proxy server operative to store state information relating to the real-time communications session between the first user computer and the second user computer, the proxy server being communicably coupled between at least one of the plurality of user computers and the communications network.

39. The system of claim 33 wherein the first document is selected from the group consisting of a web page and an e-mail message.

40. The system of claim 33 wherein the real-time messaging server is operative, in the event the second user computer is determined to be available, to generate a unique identifier associated with the real-time communications session.

41. The system of claim 40 wherein the real-time messaging server is operative, in the event the real-time communications session is not convened within a predetermined time period, to cancel the real-time communications session associated with the unique identifier.